


Elsie Mae

by Missy



Category: Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
Genre: Backstory, Gen, Mild Angst, Pre-Canon, Show Business, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 10:41:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2848019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jessica wasn't drawn this way.</p><p>No, really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Elsie Mae

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laughing_Phoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laughing_Phoenix/gifts).



Every girls’ gotta start somewhere. In Jessica’s case, that place was a big dairy farm on the outskirts of Toon Town. Her name hadn’t been Jessica, back then, either – that had come later, after she’d bought a bus ticket, packed a suit case, and promised her family she’d write every weekend. 

She was drawn Elsie Mae Crumholtz and placed in a little suburb called Cheerful Hallows. The Crumholtzes were from a fine farming community – good, upstanding people, and Elise Mae was no exception to the rule. Providing fresh milk to the rest of ToonTown, the Crumholtzes were proud of their work, in a way that Elsie slowly realized she couldn’t be. 

Little Elise was good at a lot of things, but tending the farm wasn’t one of them. The cows and sheep tended to wander when she snuck out to the fishing hole and pulled up crappies and salmon for dinner. Her pa couldn’t stay sore at her, though – Elsie was his pride and joy, too pretty by half and she could milk with the best of them (again, these are skills that haven’t atrophied; if any of the boys in the studio want her to play some sweet little farmgirl then, by gosh, she can play that with the best of them). 

Her discovery story was at least as legendary as Betty Boop’s being found at a soda fountain; she happened to be out in the barn, milking and singing, when an agent passed by. Two days later she signed her first contract.

She started out as a day player - singing folk hymns and the songs she’d heard in the hills when she was younger in the backgrounds of various Maroon flickers. Her parts often ended up on the cutting room floor due to timing and pacing issues, but she kept getting chorus work anyway. Elsie begged the folks back home to understand; people wanted pies in the face, not spiritualism. But Jessica was plucky – determined to find her way. She went from studio to studio, singing her songs. Door after door was slammed in her face; a director gave her words that remained tattooed on her heart to this day; she was as pretty as Fritzi and as curvy as Honey West, but pure-hearted hillfolk hadn’t been in fashion since Mary Pickford went into seclusion and Lillian Gish ran away to tread the boards on the great white way. 

So Elsie took a long look into her dressing room mirror. It didn’t take much to change her style – a sharp pencil could bring out lines you never knew you had. All she really needed was an eraser, an ink pen, a fresh sprinkle of rhinestones, a new coat of fresh red paint. The rounded some curves, brushed out the hair – painted her lips red, bright as a fire, bright as her hair. A brand new dress that glimmered, heels that heightened her curvy appearance. Excess lines were cleaned away.

She told no one of the pain the erasing caused. That was how strong her determination remained.

The woman looking back at her couldn’t quite be called ‘Elsie’ anymore. This creature was something different, something made of heat and spark and pure fire. She was a siren. 

No, Elsie Mae Crumholtz was not the name of a star. Instead, she took her mother’s maiden name and looked to the stars above her. Jessica Starr sounded like a cliché, and therefore a Hollywood dream. It was perfect.

*** 

It started with nightclub appearances, where she was always carefully made-up, always on the arms of the “right” rising face from the studio. She was careful to be immaculately dressed when they took picture of her on the street – a sight that packed them in at the club every time she sang. With the audience came the attention she needed, and with the attention feature spots in movies and shorts – mostly portraying a Lauren Bacall-style vamp. It was better, decided Jessica, than living life unknown on the cutting room floor. Especially when she counted her blessings at night, when she could stuff those blessings in an envelope and send them home to mom and dad.

So that was Jessica’s deep, dark secret, one that couldn’t be sold to the tabloids, photographed and used for blackmail. She hadn’t been drawn bad. She’d drawn herself bad, as a form of salvation.

*** 

She met Roger during one of those sold-out shows. He was nothing but a gentlerabbit during the entire encounter, and when he called her up and asked her for a date she easily said yes. That first night they went to the pier and rode every ride until they fell to laughing, dizzy with more than the bumpy action of the ride. She knew she was in love the second he took her hand.

There was a bit of friction when she brought him home – after all, to the Crumholtz clan rabbits were for eating, not marrying. But Jessica would not be dissuaded; Roger was a wonderful rabbit, sweet, and most importantly very funny. Jessica adored a sense of humor in her partners, and Roger had one like no other.

Before long, he discovered the truth about her redneck past; that he didn’t react negatively but instead embraced her roots just served to bond Jessica all the more strongly to him. He liked the Elsie hidden inside of Jessica. That was what was important. It was, in fact, more than enough to make her his proud wife. He’s the one who encouraged her to add more standards to her act, giving it a fuller body and a more well-rounded sense of her charm that pointed out her secret soft heart hidden deep within the soft curves of her body.

They married on that old pier where they’d had their first date. They ate and drank themselves dizzy and then – when she couldn’t dance another step – Roger took her home to their beautiful house. And that was how her real life began.


End file.
